People s opium? Religion andeconomic attitudes $

Transcription

1 Journal of Monetary Economics 50 (2003) People s opium? Religion andeconomic attitudes $ Luigi Guiso a,b,c, Paola Sapienza d,e, Luigi Zingales e,f,c, * a University of Sassari, Loc. Serra Secca Sassari, Italy b Ente Luigi Einaudi, Via Due Macelli, 73; Rome, Italy c Centre for Economic and Policy Research, Goswell Road, London EC1V 7RR, UK d Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, 2001 Sheridan Rd., Evanston, IL 60208, USA e Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago, 1101 East 58th Street, Chicago, IL, 60637, USA f National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138, USA Received19 April 2002; receivedin revisedform 5 September 2002; accepted6 September 2002 Abstract Since Max Weber, there has been an active debate on the impact of religion on people s economic attitudes. Much of the existing evidence, however, is based on cross-country studies in which this impact is confounded by differences in other institutional factors. We use the WorldValues Surveys to identify the relationship between intensity of religious beliefs and economic attitudes, controlling for country-fixed effects. We study several economic attitudes towardcooperation, the government, working women, legal rules, thriftiness, andthe market economy. We also distinguish across religious denominations, differentiating on whether a religion is dominant in a country. We find that on average, religious beliefs are associated with good economic attitudes, where good is defined as conducive to higher per capita income andgrowth. Yet religious people tendto be more racist andless favorable with respect to working women. These effects differ across religious denominations. Overall, we find that Christian religions are more positively associatedwith attitudes conducive to economic growth. r 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. JEL classification: A1; E0; N4; Z1 Keywords: Religion; Institutions; Preferences; Economic growth $ We thank Roc Armenter for excellent research assistantship, Chiara Corti andadam Cartabiano for their help in inputting the tables, Jason Hwang for his great help with the WVS coding, and Louise Kelley andparticipants to the 2002 Carnegie Rochester series for comments. Luigi Guiso also thanks MURST andthe EEC andluigi Zingales the Stigler Center at the University of Chicago for financial support. *Corresponding author. Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA. Tel.: ; fax: address: (L. Zingales) /03/$ - see front matter r 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. doi: /s (02)

2 226 L. Guiso et al. / Journal of Monetary Economics 50 (2003) Introduction Economists, sociologists, andpolitical scientists have long been interestedin explaining the economic success of certain countries andthe persistent poverty of others. In search of the ultimate cause, an obvious role has been suggestedfor religion. There is hardly an aspect of a society s life that is not affected by religion. Why shouldn t it affect a country s ability to produce efficiently and grow? Max Weber (1905) was the first to identify the significant role that religion plays in social change. He went as far as to state that the Protestant Reformation triggereda mental revolution that made possible the advent of modern capitalism. Almost a century after Weber s seminal work, the importance of religion in explaining the prosperity of nations seems to be experiencing a rebirth. While scholars prefer to avoidcorrelating religion directly with economic prosperity, they try to relate it to fundamental institutions that have been shown to be conducive to growth. In his study of development across Italy, for instance, Putnam (1993) attributes the prevailing lack of trust towardothers in the South to the strong Catholic tradition, which emphasizes the vertical bond with the Church and tends to undermine the horizontal bond with fellow citizens. In a cross-country study, both La Porta et al. (1997) and Inglehart (1999) findsome evidence for this theory. On a similar note, Landes (1998) attributes the failure of Spain to develop in the 16th and 17th century to the culture of intolerance diffused by the Catholic Church, which forcedsome of the most skillful people out of the country. Finally, Stulz and Williamson (2001) attribute the low level of creditors protection present in Catholic countries to the anti-usury culture pervasive in the Catholic tradition. Unlike Weber, most of these authors provide compelling evidence in favor of their claim, showing a robust correlation between a country s main religion andthese institutions. Such evidence, however, can be interpreted in two ways. One possible interpretation is that there is something intrinsic to certain religions, such as Catholicism, that makes them inimical to the development of talents and institutions that foster economic growth. An alternative interpretation, which is equally consistent with the results, is that there was something in the past (correlatedwith religion, but not necessarily religion) that trappeda country in a badequilibrium. According to this interpretation, there is nothing fundamental, but it is hysteresis that keeps a country trappedin this equilibrium. A possible variation of this hypothesis, which is observationally equivalent to the previous one, is that there were some aspects of a religion, in this case Catholicism, that were inimical to the development of certain institutions, for example trust, but that these aspects disappeared over time, possibly because of a reform. While the difference between the two hypotheses seems rather uninteresting from a historical point of view, from a policy perspective it is very important. If the first alternative is true, then short of changing a country s religion (a task beyondthe power even of the WorldBank), there is very little hope for bringing prosperity to many poor countries. By contrast, the secondalternative provides some hope. It is sufficient to find a coordinating device to escape the bad equilibrium trap without trying to change people s religious beliefs.

3 L. Guiso et al. / Journal of Monetary Economics 50 (2003) Unfortunately, the existing cross-country analysis cannot distinguish between these two hypotheses. To identify the effect of religion separately from the effect of other historical accidents, we have to resort to a within country analysis. Such an analysis cannot be conducted in one country alone, because the role of a religion might depend highly upon the social and historical context in which it developed. To address this issue in this study, we use a data set containing data on individuals for a large set of countries. The WorldValues Survey (WVS) is actually a collection of surveys administered to a representative sample of people in 66 countries from 1981 to These questionnaires contain information not only about religious affiliation, but also about the intensity of beliefs (frequency of attending religious services) andhow the interviewee was raised(religiously or not). Thus, we are able to study the relation between the degree of religiosity and the type of religion on a series of fundamental societal attitudes that have been shown to be conducive to higher productivity and growth. We analyze the relation between religion andsix groups of variables: people s attitudes toward cooperation, women, government, legal rules, the market economy andits fairness, andthriftiness. As measures of attitudes toward cooperation, we use individual responses to questions regarding how much one trusts other people in general and how tolerant individuals are toward neighbors of different races and/or countries. As measures of attitude toward women, we use responses to a variety of questions ranging from who shouldget a job first, a man or a woman, when jobs are scarce; whether men shouldhave priority in obtaining university education; and whether both men and women should contribute to householdincome. As measure of attitudes towardthe government, we use individual responses on how much people trust the government and other government institutions. As measures of attitude toward legal norms, we use individual responses regarding trust of the legal system and willingness to break the law, including cheating on taxes, avoiding a fare on public transportation, or paying bribes. The WVS asks people to state their position along the efficiency versus equity trade off. The interviewer shows a card to the respondent in which there are two opposite statements at the extremes of a 1 10 interval. The respondent chooses the number that best describes his or her relative position. Questions range from whether people think pay inequality is necessary to provide better incentives to whether competition brings out the worst in people or stimulates hardwork andnew ideas. Finally, to measure people s attitudes toward thriftiness, we use responses to a question concerning whether it is especially important to instill the virtue of thriftiness in children. To isolate the effect of religion from other confounding effects, we control for country-fixedeffects andseveral individual characteristics: health status, age, sex, education, income, and perceived social status. We findthat on average religion is associatedpositively with attitudes that are conducive to free markets and better institutions. Religious people trust others more, trust the government andthe legal system more, are less willing to break the law, and are more likely to believe that markets outcomes are fair. The relation between religiosity andmarket mechanisms (incentives, competition, andprivate property) is

4 228 L. Guiso et al. / Journal of Monetary Economics 50 (2003) more mixed. On the negative side, religious people are more intolerant and less sympathetic to women s rights. The aspect of religion that is associated with economic attitudes is different across the intensity of religious beliefs. Trust towardothers is associatedmostly with religious participation, not religious upbringing. By contrast, intolerance is mostly an outcome of being raisedreligiously. Active churchgoers are not more intolerant towardimmigrants than the rest of the population (but not less either) andthey are less sympathetic to women s rights. Finally, both a religious upbringing andactive religious participation increase trust towardgovernment institutions. We find that different religions have different effects on people s attitudes. Participation to religious services increases trust only among Christians. The effect is zero or even negative for other denominations. Within the Christian family, the effect is stronger for Protestant than for Catholics, as suggestedby Putnam (1993). The relation between religion andintolerance is present in all religious denominations. The only exception is Buddhists who are more tolerant than non-religious people. Hindus and Muslim are the less tolerant towards immigrants and other races, followedby Jews, Catholics andprotestants. The point estimates for Protestants and Catholics are very similar, while basedon previous studies one wouldhave expected less tolerance from Catholics (Landes, 1998). Active participants in any religion trust the government more than non-religious people, with the only exception of Buddhists. The effect is stronger for Hindus andmuslim, weaker for Catholics andprotestant. Similarly, all religious denominations are associated with a more conservative attitude towardwomen. However, the effect is much stronger for Muslims. Judaism has the strongest negative impact on the willingness to cheat on taxes, followed by Protestantism (second), Catholicism and Hinduism (third), and Islam (fourth). The ranking changes somehow when it comes to accept a bribe. The strongest negative effect is for Buddhist, with Protestants and Muslim next, and Catholics last. Protestants are the only religious group that favors incentives. This result vindicates Weber s claims. Religious denominations also differ in their attitude toward private ownership. Observant Catholics support private ownership twice as much as Protestants, while Muslims andhindus are strongly against competition. Finally, with the exception of Buddhists, religious people of all denominations are more inclined to believe that poor people are lazy andlack will power. The effect is stronger for Protestants than Catholics. Overall, we findthat Christian religions are more positively associated with attitudes conducive to economic growth, while religious Muslims are the most anti-market. Within Christian denominations, the ranking is unclear: Protestants are more trusting andfavor incentives more, Catholics are more thrifty andfavor private property andcompetition more. The rest of the paper proceeds as follows. Section 2 briefly reviews the theoretical priors on the economic effects of religion. Section 3 presents the data set we use and our measure of religious affiliation andattitude towardcooperation, government, legal rules, andthe market economy. Section 4 reports the results of the effects of religion in general, while Section 5 differentiates across religious denominations. Section 6 concludes.

5 2. Theoretical predictions L. Guiso et al. / Journal of Monetary Economics 50 (2003) An excellent survey of the theoretical debate on the links between religion and economic development is provided by Steuart (1998). Without aspiring to be exhaustive, we now summarize the main points of this debate. The earliest crucial point was the direction of causality. On the one hand, Feuerbach andmarx see religion as a mere reflection of human life. In his Criticism of Hegel s Law, Marx (1844) states: The grounds of the unreligious critique is man made religion, religion does not make man... Religious misery is, by one side, an expression of the real misery. Religion is the exhaustedcreature s sigh, the state of animus of a heartless world, the spirit of spiritless situations. Religion is the people s opium. Weber was of the opposite view. In his classic The Protestant Ethic andthe Spirit of Capitalism, Weber attributes the emergence of the spirit of capitalism to the development of a Protestant ethic. Weber s Protestant ethic results from the interaction of the doctrine of salvation andthe concept of goodworks. It was Luther who decisively altered the Christian concept of good works by prescribing the fulfillment of duties in worldly affairs as the highest form which the moral activity of the individual could assume (Weber, 1905). Eisenstadt moves away from an analysis of a direct causal link between Protestantism andcapitalism to focus on the transformative potential of religions. The transformative potential refers to the capacity to legitimize, in religious or ideological terms, the development of new motivations, activities, and institutions which were not encompassedby their original impulses andviews (Eisenstadt, 1968). Eisenstadt s main thesis is that Protestantism redefined political and social institutions, andimpactedon the reformulation of roles within the economic sphere. Eisenstadt s concept of transformative potential is also useful in assessing the potential impact of other religions, such as Hinduism. Given the multiplicity of gods and sects, it is very difficult to identify a clear position of Hinduism toward economic activity. In particular, the stereotype that portrays Hindu as ascetic and uninterested in the material worldcan be rejectedeasily. In the Panchatantra, we findstatements such as wealth gives constant vigor, confidence andpower and poverty is a curse worse than death (Uppal, 1986). Nevertheless, according to Eisenstadt, the highly ritualistic behavior promoted by Hinduism is less likely to facilitate the development of more systematic efforts in any fieldof activity. We encounter similar problems when we analyze Islam. While the Sunnah prohibits the formation andconclusion of aleatory contracts basedon chance (Jomo, 1992), many verses of the Quaran encourage effort andimprovement. Thus, the underdevelopment of many Islamic countries cannot be attributed to Islam per se, but is possibly due to the development, somewhere in between the ninth and the 11th century, of inflexible political andlegal institutions in the Islamic worlddesignedto discourage growth values andpractices andaimedat preserving the status quo. More recently, the debate has focused on the impact of religion on specific attitudes that might promote or hamper growth, rather than on differences in the Weltanschauung fosteredby different religions. Putnam (1993) for instance, focuses on trust andclaims that the Catholic tradition, which emphasizes the vertical bond

6 230 L. Guiso et al. / Journal of Monetary Economics 50 (2003) with the Church rather than a horizontal bondwith fellow citizens, has a negative impact on people s average level of trust in others. Landes (1998) focuses on tolerance andclaims that the culture of intolerance diffusedby the Catholic Inquisition negatively affectedthe ability of Catholic countries to grow. We follow this more recent literature in considering religious beliefs as low frequency variables, basedon religious teachings, which affect people s attitudes towards the economic system. These religious teachings do not necessarily reflect the authentic message containedin the sacredtexts. They simply represent the way certain religious beliefs became crystallizedover time andthe way they are taught andtransmittedfrom one generation to the next. As a result, even if we were willing to interpret in a causal way the negative correlation between attitudes towards private property andthe Muslim religion, we do not want to say that this is Mohammed s or the Quaran s fault, but simply the effect of the Muslim cultural tradition and the way it has evolved as a result of historical circumstances Existing empirical studies In his survey on the economics of religions, Iannaccone (1998) claims that the most noteworthy feature of the Protestant Ethic thesis is its absence of empirical support. In fact, work by Samuelsson (1993) and Tawney (1926) shows that most of the capitalist institutions described by Weber were antecedent to the Protestant Reformation. However, this evidence only rejects the specific channel proposed by Weber, not a more general link between the Protestant ethic andthe development of a capitalist attitude. In fact, in a cross-country study of former British, French, and Spanish colonies, Grier (1997) shows that Protestantism is correlatedpositively with growth anddevelopment. To verify or disprove Weber s thesis, however, it is necessary to go past the fact that the Protestant countries have been more successful economically. This was the fact that motivatedweber in the first place, so it cannot be usedto test his theory. Blum anddudley (2001) make an important step in this direction. First, they refine Weber s thesis. They argue that Protestantism, by rejecting the Catholic sacrament of penance and increasing the individual penalty for defaulting, improved the level of mutual trust andcooperation. Second, they use this theory to explain why wages rose in Protestant cities between 1500 and1750, while at the same time the wages in Catholic cities fell. The recent literature can be distinguished between macro and micro studies. The macro literature focuses on cross-countries studies. La Porta et al. (1997) and Inglehart (1999) provide evidence in favor of Putnam s argument that Catholic countries have a lower level of trust. Barro andmccleary (2002) findthat economic growth responds positively to the extent of religious beliefs, but negatively to church attendance. Finally Stulz andwilliamson (2001) claim that countries permeatedby Catholic culture, with its traditional anti-usury bent, tend to protect creditors rights less. The problem with these studies is that there are too many institutional differences across countries and too few degrees of freedom to identify the specific effects of

7 L. Guiso et al. / Journal of Monetary Economics 50 (2003) religions separately. For example, it is impossible to distinguish whether the ultimate effect is due to the country s main religion or to some other characteristics correlated with the beliefs of the dominant religion. Country-fixedeffects wouldsolve this identification problem, but they cannot be used in this framework. At the microlevel, there are several studies on the effects of religion on economic outcomes. Religion seems to affect wages (Chiswick, 1983), school attendance (Freeman, 1986), health (Ellison, 1991), andcriminal behavior (Evans et al., 1995). Yet, there are problems with these studies. First, there is an issue of endogeneity: good kids may avoid drugs, stay in school, and go to church (Freeman, 1986). Thus, it is far from clear that the correlation is causal. Second, these studies are basedon a single country (generally the UnitedStates). Thus, they can hardly be generalizedto other countries. Finally, they focus on the correlation between religion and outcomes, not attitudes. Outcomes are the result of attitudes but also of the surrounding environment. For example, ceteris paribus Catholics in the United States tendto have higher wages (not as high as Jews, but higher than other religions). But this success is generally attributedto the quality of their educational system. Thus, it is not necessarily Catholicism per se that makes them more successful in life, but rather the interaction between the educational system and Catholic Church organizations in the UnitedStates. It wouldbe very dangerous, therefore, to extrapolate this result to Latin America andto claim, for example, that Catholicism wouldhave a positive influence on the standardof living there. In sum, more than 100 years after its inception, the debate on the economic effects of religion is far from settled. The complexity and variety of every religion make it impossible to reach any conclusion on purely theoretical grounds. On the other hand, empirical work is plagued by identification problems Our empirical strategy We plan to overcome these problems in the following ways. First, we will control for individual country effects, eliminating the impact of other institutional variables. This approach runs the risk of underestimating the effect of religion to the extent its impact has been absorbedfully in the national culture. 1 Nevertheless, what we find can be attributedmore credibly to religion. Second, we use religious upbringing to identify the effect of religion that is independent of individual characteristics, particularly those that are unobservable to us. Third, we reduce the effect of potentially spurious factors by looking at people s attitudes rather than at their economic outcome. Asking somebody his view on cheating on taxes is different from asking him if he has cheated on his taxes. The first question, however, is more appropriate for our purposes than the second. The decision of whether to actually cheat is affected greatly by the probability of being caught. This is a function of a country s law enforcement, not of an individual s 1 For example, the Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce stated that the Christian tradition has affected the Italian culture so much that Italian cannot be considered non-christian even if they are atheists.

8 232 L. Guiso et al. / Journal of Monetary Economics 50 (2003) attitude. Therefore, looking at attitudes is a better way of identifying the effect of religious beliefs on people s preferences. In spite of all these improvements, we are well aware of the difficulty in interpreting the observedcorrelations as causal effects. The traditional latent variable critique (that a latent variable causes people both to be more religious and to behave in a certain way) can be appliedeven to religious upbringing, as long as we are willing to assume that this latent variable can be transmittedfrom parents to children (either genetically or through education). For this reason, we prefer to interpret our results as more precisely estimatedpartial correlations. Even when, to simplify the exposition, we will talk about the impact of religion, the reader should interpret this as mere correlation. We choose as our dependent variables attitudes that might have an important economic impact. Our variables can be groupedinto six categories: attitudes toward (1) trust andcooperation, (2) women, (3) the government, (4) the law, (5) the market andits fairness, and(6) thriftiness. We chose the first set of variables because trust andcooperation have been shown to be relevant for economic growth (Knack and Keefer, 1997; Knack andzak, 2001). Also, Landes (1998) claims that intolerance has negative impact on growth. We chose to look at attitudes toward women because of their obvious link with the labor market participation decision and thus with a country s endowment of labor. We looked at attitudes toward the government because political instability has been shown to be detrimental for growth (e.g. Barro, 1991) andinvestments (e.g. Alesina andperotti, 1995). Attitudes toward the law are important because they affect a country s law-and-order tradition, which in turn affects financial development (La Porta et al, 1997) andfinally growth. One of the variables analyzedhere is the attitude towardcorruption, which has been shown to be detrimental to growth (Mauro, 1995). Pro-market policies are widely believed to favor growth, and Easton andwalker (1997) provide systematic evidence for this. Finally, we look at attitudes toward thrift not only for historical reasons (Weber attributedthe success of Capitalism in certain countries to Protestants superior thrift), but also because of its importance in the modern theory of growth. 3. Data 3.1. Description of the world value survey The WVS is a cross-country project coordinated by the Institute for Social Research of the University of Michigan, under the direction of Ronald Inglehart. Each wave carries out representative national surveys of the basic values andbeliefs of individuals in a large cross-section of countries. This questionnaire contains information about demographics (sex, age, education, etc.), self-reported economic characteristics (income, social class), andanswers to specific questions about religion, political preferences, andattitudes. We use the last three waves that are available ( , and ). Respondents come from 66 independent countries. These countries include

9 L. Guiso et al. / Journal of Monetary Economics 50 (2003) almost 80 percent of the world s population. The coverage of countries varies across surveys. The survey covered 22 independent countries and Northern Ireland; the survey expanded to cover 42 independent countries, Northern Ireland, and greater Moscow; the survey covered 54 independent countries. Being a large and very complex data set, the WVS suffers from some coding problems. Even after implementing all the changes suggestedby the codebook, we found that a few countries have a distribution of religious denominations that is very different from the one reported in the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) factbook. To be on the safe side, we eliminated these country-years. 2 We might thus be eliminating validobservations for countries where the survey weights are very different from the population weights. Nevertheless, we think this procedure does not introduce any clear bias, while the opposite type of error would. We were also forced to drop a few countries because of missing data on some other variables that are crucial for our analysis (these countries included Canada, South Korea, Pakistan, China, the Czech Republic andslovakia). The summary statistics for the remaining countries are presentedin Table Measures of religious affiliation Table 1, panel A, reports summary statistics of the attitudes toward religion by country. The first column reports the percentage of respondents that answered yes to the question Were you brought up religiously at home? The secondandthird column report the answer to the following question Apart from weddings, funerals, and christenings, about how often do you attend religious services these days? The fourth column is the percentage of people who answer no to the question Do you believe in God? Table 1, panel B, reports the distribution of population by religious denomination andcountry. Religious denomination is codedbasedon the answers to the following question: Do you belong to a religious denomination? IF YES: Which one? We use the first set of answers to identify the exogenous component of religion, the one that does not depend on individual characteristics. To measure the intensity of religious beliefs, we use the frequency of attendance at religious services, rather than self-declared membership in a religious denomination. Many people who have been raisedin a certain religion continue to declare that they belong to that religion even if they attendreligious services less than once a year. We do not regardthis as additional information with respect to religious upbringing. 3 2 As a result, we dropped Australia (1228 obs.) for the 1981 wave; Canada (1730 obs.) and Nigeria (1001 obs.) for the 1990 wave; Taiwan (1452 obs.), Nigeria (2767 obs.), Ghana (95 obs.) andthe Philippines (1200 obs.) for the 1995 wave. Our only doubt was Finland, where the percentage of Protestant was fine, but the percentage of Jews appearedtoo high. For this reason, we reran all the regressions excluding Finland, without appreciable differences in the results. 3 In several specifications, we have tried and used self-declared membership in a religious denomination insteadof attendance at religious services at least once a year, as a measure of religious belief. The results were very similar.

10 234 L. Guiso et al. / Journal of Monetary Economics 50 (2003) Table 1 Sample statistics. This table reports sample statistics of the responses from WORLD VALUES SURVEY , and (ICPSR 2790). Respondents were from 66 independent countries in at least one wave. These countries include almost 80 percent of the world s population. The coverage of countries varies across surveys. The survey covered 22 independent countries plus Northern Ireland; the survey covered 42 independent countries plus Northern Ireland, and Greater Moscow; the survey covered 54 independent countries. Panel A reports summary statistics of religious beliefs by country. The first column reports the percentage of respondents that answered yes to the question Were you brought up religiously at home? The second and the third column reports the answer to the following question Apart from weddings, funerals and christenings, about how often do you attend religious services these days? The fourth column is the percentage of people who answer no to the question Do you believe in God? Panel B reports distribution of population by religious denomination and country. Religious denomination is coded based on the answers to the following question: Do you belong to a religious denomination? If yes: Which one? Panel C reports summary statistics of the intensity of religious beliefs by religious denomination. Panel D reports summary statistics for the variables usedin the regression analysis. Variable 1 is based on the following question: Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you can t be too careful in dealing with people? The variable is equal to 1 if participants report that most people can be trustedandzero otherwise. Variables 2 and3 are basedon the following question: On this list are various groups of people. Could you please sort out any that you would not like to have as neighbors? (Variable 2: people of a different race; Variable 3: the immigrants.) Variable 4 is the combination of variables 2 and3 andis equal to 1 if either variable 2 or 3 or both is equal to one. Variables 5 7 are based on the general question: I am going to name a number of organizations. For each one, could you tell me how much confidence you have in them: is it a great deal of confidence, quite a lot of confidence, not very much confidence or none at all? Answers are coded 1 4, we recoded them so that a higher number represents a higher degree of confidence. Organizations we considered are the government, the police and the armed forces. Variable 8 comes from the answers to the question Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: When jobs are scarce, men should have more right to a job than women? Answers are coded 1 4, we recoded them so that a higher number represents a higher degree of agreement. Variable 9 comes from the answers to the question: Do you think that women should have children in order to be fulfilled or is this not necessary? The answer needs children is coded as one, the answer not necessary is coded as a zero. Variables come from the answer to the question For each of the following statements I read out, can you tell me how much you agree with each. Do you agree strongly, agree, disagree, or disagree strongly? The statements are: Being a housewife is just as fulfilling as working for pay (variable 10), Both the husband and wife should contribute to household income (variable 11), A university education is more important for a boy than for a girl (variable 12). We recoded them so that a higher number represents a higher degree of agreement. Variable 13 is basedon a question similar to variables 5 7, except that the organization mentionedis the legal system. Answers are coded 1 4, we recoded them so that a higher number represents a higher degree of confidence. Variables are based on the following question: Please tell me for each of the following statements whether you think it can always be justified, never be justified, or something in between, using this card. Answers are in the range 1 10, with 1=never justifiable and10=always be justifiable. Claiming government benefits to which you are not entitled (variable 14). Avoiding a fare on public transport (variable 15). Cheating on taxes if you have a chance (variable 16). Buying something you knew was stolen (variable 17). Accepting a bribe in the course of their duties (variable 18). Variables and23 26 are basedon the following question: Now I d like you to tell me your views on various issues. How would you place your views on this scale? 1 means you agree completely with the statement on the left; 10 means you agree completely with the statement on the right; and if your views fall somewhere in between, you can choose any number in between. The statement on the left is normally the opposite of the statement on the right. Statements considered are (we report only statements on the right): We need larger income differences as incentives for individual effort (variable 19); Private ownership of business and industry should be increased (variable 20); Competition is good. It stimulates to work hard and develop new

11 L. Guiso et al. / Journal of Monetary Economics 50 (2003) ideas (variable 21); People should take more responsibility to provide for themselves (variable 23); In the long run hard work usually brings a better life (variable 24); Wealth can grow so there is enough for everybody (variable 25). Variable 22 is basedon the answer to the question: Here is a list of qualities that children can be encouraged to learn at home. Which, if any, do you consider to be especially important? We code as 1 if the respondent lists as important Thrift, saving money and things. Variable 26 is basedon the question: Why, in your opinion, are there people in this country who live in need? Here are two opinions: Which comes closest to you view? We code as one the answer They are poor because of laziness and lack of will power andzero the answer They are poor because society treats them unfairly. Panel E reports the demographic characteristics of the respondents. Health is coded based on the question: All in all, how would you describe your state of health these days? (1=very poor; 2=poor, 3=fair, 4=good, 5=very good). Male is an indicator variable equal to one if the respondent is male, otherwise equal to zero. Age is expressed in years. Education is the age in years at which the respondent completed his or her highest education (excluding apprenticeships). Social class is coded based on the response to the question: People sometimes describe themselves as belonging to the working class, the middle class, or the upper or lower class. Would you describe yourself as belonging to the: 1=lower class, 2=working class, 3=lower middle class, 4=upper middle class, 5=upper class. Income is coded based on the response to the question: Here is a scale of incomes. We would like to know in what group your household is, counting all wages, salaries, pensions and other incomes that come in. Just give the letter of the group your household falls into, before taxes and other deductions (income categories are coded by decile for each society, l=lowest decile, 10=highest decile) Panel A: Attitudes towards religion by country (percentages) Country Raised religiously at home Goes to church at least once a year Goes to church at least once a week Does not believe in God Number of respondents France Britain West Germany Italy Netherlands Denmark Belgium Spain Ireland N. Ireland USA Japan Mexico S. Africa Hungary Australia Norway Sweden Iceland Argentina Finland Poland Switzerland Puerto Rico Brazil Chile Belarus India

14 238 L. Guiso et al. / Journal of Monetary Economics 50 (2003) Table 1 (continued) Panel C: Religiosity by religious denomination (percentages) Country Raisedreligiously at home Goes to church at least once a year Goes to church at least once a week Catholic Protestant Jew Muslim Hindu Buddhist Others Panel D: Summary statistics of economic and social attitudes Variable Mean Median SD Interq. Range Min Max Attitudes toward others 1. Trust people (0,1) Intolerant towards other races (0,1) 3. Intolerant towards the immigrants (0,1) 4. Average intolerance Attitudes toward the government 5. Trust the government Trust the police Trust the armedforces Attitudes toward women 8. When jobs are scarce, men should have more right to a job than women 9. Do you think that women should have children in order to be fulfilled 10. Being a housewife is just as fulfilling as working for pay 11. Both the husbandandwife should contribute to householdincome 12. A university education is more important for a boy than for a girl Attitudes toward legal rules 13. Trust the legal system It is justifiedto claim government benefits you are not entitledto? 15. It is justifiedto avoida fare on public transport? 16. It is justifiedto cheat on taxes? It is justifiedto buy a stolen object? It is justifiedto accept a bribe?

15 L. Guiso et al. / Journal of Monetary Economics 50 (2003) Table 1 (continued) Variable Mean Median SD Interq. Range Min Max Attitudes toward the market 19. Inequality of income gives incentives to individuals versus income shouldbe made more equal 20. Private ownership shouldbe increasedversus government ownership shouldbe increased 21. Competition is goodversus competition is harmful Attitudes toward thriftiness 22. Do you think to be especially important that children be encouraged to learn at home thrift, saving money andthings Attitudes toward market s fairness 23. Individual responsibility versus government assistance 24. Hardwork improves life versus success is more a matter of luck and connections. 25. Wealth can grow so there s enough for everyone versus one can get rich only at expense of others 26. In your opinion who lives in needis poor because of laziness andlack of will power Panel E: Demographic characteristics Mean Median Standard Deviation Minimum Maximum Observations Health Male Age Education Social class Income Religious denominations differ in the extent to which they prescribe weekly attendance at religious services. Our goal, though, is not to measure adherence to a precept, but rather exposure to religious teachings. Since people who attendreligious services more are exposedto religious principles more, we use church attendance as a proxy for the dimension of religiosity we care about. Table 1, panel C, reports the distribution of the intensity of religious beliefs by religious denomination. People who declare themselves Catholic, for instance, attendreligious services much more often than people who declare themselves of any

16 240 L. Guiso et al. / Journal of Monetary Economics 50 (2003) other religious denomination except Hindu. In evaluating the potential impact of different religious denominations, we have to take into consideration these systematic differences in the intensity of beliefs Our dependent variables Table 1, panel D, reports the summary statistics for our dependent variables. All of them represent measures of people s attitudes. We focus on attitudes that have a direct impact on economic life. We divide them into six groups Measures of attitude toward cooperation The first group contains measures of people s attitude toward cooperation. Variable 1, which we label trust, is basedon the following question: Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you can t be too careful in dealing with people? The variable is equal to 1 if participants report that most people can be trustedandzero otherwise. Variables 2 and3, which we label intolerance towardother races andintolerance towardimmigrants, respectively, are basedon the following question: On this list are various groups of people. Could you please sort out any that you would not like to have as neighbors? (Variable 2: people of a different race; variable 3: the immigrants.) Variable 4, which we label average intolerance, is the combination of variables 2 and3 andis equal to 1 if either variable 2 or 3 is equal to one or if both are Measures of attitude toward government The secondgroup of variables contains measures of people s attitude toward government institutions. Variables 5 7 are basedon the following question: I am going to name a number of organizations. For each one, could you tell me how much confidence you have in it: a great deal of confidence, quite a lot of confidence, not very much confidence, or none at all? The answers are coded 1 4, by increasing degree of confidence. The organizations we considered are the government, the police, and the armedforces Measures of attitude toward women The thirdgroup of variables contains measures of people s attitude toward women. Since we are ultimately interestedin the effects on labor participation, we focusedon questions that might influence women s propensity to work. Hence, variable 8 is the answer to this question: When jobs are scarce, should men have more right to a job than women? Answers are coded 1 4; we recoded them so that a higher number represents a higher degree of agreement. Variable 9 comes from the answer to the question: Do you think that women should have children in order to be fulfilled, or is this not necessary? The answer needs children is coded as one, the answer not necessary is coded as zero. Variables come from the answer to the question For each of the following statements I read out, can you tell me how much you agree with each. Do you agree strongly, agree, disagree, or disagree strongly? The statements are: Being a housewife is just as fulfilling as working for pay (variable

17 L. Guiso et al. / Journal of Monetary Economics 50 (2003) ); Both the husband and wife should contribute to household income (variable 11); A university education is more important for a boy than for a girl (variable 12). We recoded them so that a higher number represents a higher degree of agreement Measures of attitude toward legal norms The fourth group of variables contains measures of people s attitude toward legal norms. Variable 13 is basedon a question similar to variables 5 7, except that the organization mentionedis the legal system. Answers are coded 1 4; we recoded them so that a higher number represents a higher degree of confidence. Variables are basedon the following question: Please tell me for each of the following statements whether you think it can always be justified, never be justified, or something in between, using this card. Answers are in the range 1 10, with 1=never justifiable and10=always justifiable. The questions we are interestedin are: Claiming government benefits to which you are not entitled (variable 14); Avoiding a fare on public transport (variable 15); Cheating on taxes if you have a chance (variable 16); Buying something you knew was stolen (variable 17); Accepting a bribe in the course of their duties (variable 18) Measures of attitude toward the market The fifth group contains measures of people s attitude toward the market (variables 19 21). They are basedon the following question: Now I d like you to tell me your views on various issues. How would you place your views on this scale? 1 means you agree completely with the statement on the left; 10 means you agree completely with the statement on the right; and if your views fall somewhere in between, you can choose any number in between. The statement on the left is normally the opposite of the statement on the right. The statements considered are (reporting only the statements on the right): We need larger income differences as incentives for individual effort (variable 19); Private ownership of business and industry should be increased (variable 20); Competition is good. It stimulates people to work hard and develop new ideas (variable 21) Measures of attitude toward the thriftiness and fairness of the market As measure of attitude toward thriftiness, we use the answer to the question: Here is a list of qualities that children can be encouraged to learn at home. Which, if any, do you consider to be especially important? We code a 1 if the respondent lists as important Thrift, saving money and things. 4 Variables from 23 to 25 are questions framedas are variables 19 21, except that the statements are: People should take more responsibility to provide for themselves (variable 23); In the long run hard work usually brings a better life (variable 24); Wealth can grow so there is enough for everybody (variable 25). 4 The interviewedperson is presentedwith a list of 11 alternatives, ranging from imagination to obedience, and can mention at most five as important.

18 242 L. Guiso et al. / Journal of Monetary Economics 50 (2003) Finally, variable 26 is basedon the question: Why, in your opinion, are there people in this country who live in need? Here are two opinions: Which comes closest to you view? We code as 1 the answer They are poor because of laziness and lack of will power andzero the answer They are poor because society treats them unfairly Other control variables To isolate the effect of religion from other confounding effects, we control for country fixed effects and several individual characteristics. This strategy might underestimate the impact of religion, since religion positively affects health (Ellison, 1991; Levin, 1994; Levin andvanderpool, 1987), andincome (Chiswick, 1983). Nevertheless, we think it is important to establish whether religion has an additional direct effect. Table 1, panel E, reports the demographic characteristics of the respondents. Health is coded based on the question: All in all, how would you describe your state of health these days? (1=very poor; 2=poor, 3=fair, 4=good, 5=very good). Male is an indicator variable equal to one if the respondent is male, otherwise it is zero. Age is expressedin years. Education is the age in years at which the respondent completed his or her highest education (excluding apprenticeships). Social class is coded based on the response to the question: People sometimes describe themselves as belonging to the working class, the middle class, or the upper or lower class. Would you describe yourself as belonging to the: 1=Lower class, 2=Working class, 3=Lower middle class, 4=Upper middle class, 5=Upper class. Income is coded based on the response to the question: Here is a scale of incomes. We would like to know in what group your household is, counting all wages, salaries, pensions, and other income that comes in. Just give the letter of the group your household falls into, before taxes and other deductions (income categories are coded by decile for each society, 1=lowest decile, 10=highest decile). 4. The impact of religion In Table 2, we present our results on the overall effects of religion. Each attitude is regressedon our four indicators of religiosity atheists, people brought up religiously, currently religious, andactively religious some control variables, country specific effects, and calendar year dummies. The size of the reference sample differs across regressions; valid observations vary according to specific questions on individual attitudes, and range from 52,252 to 95, Control variables Before we comment on the results on the impact of religion, it is useful to discuss the effect of our control variables. The results, which are of independent interest, are very reasonable and provide credibility to the measures of attitude we are going to use.

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